Month: July 2018

I was still wobbly as I loaded up the car.

I had tossed and turned during the night.   I would wake up, legs cramping, then chug some water.  I would wake up again, legs cramping again, and again, and again.  My body finally gave up around 4am and I got a good three hours sleep before I woke, head foggy.  Thankfully my headache had passed, but I was not rested. 

The day’s journey began with a slow drive towards the back gate along the flight line road*.  I had hoped to see one or more of the bombers assigned to the base, but all that was out was a lone C-130 transport plane.  Once back on civilian soil, I was met by a row of scraggily mesquite that, as I continued on, gave way to the requisite neighborhood of double-wide trailers.  I was on my way.

This was intended to be another easy-ish day, 500 or so miles from Abilene to Albuquerque.  The morning went smoothly as I rolled through the flat plains and cotton fields of West Texas.  I stopped for petrol in Lubbock, and continued my trek northwest.  It began to rain as I approached the New Mexico state line, a welcome relief from the summer sun.  Clovis brought road construction that reduced the highway to a single lane each way; I passed the time watching activity in the rail yard that paralleled my path.  After the air base (Cannon, home of the 27th Special Ops), the rain cleared, and the cultivated fields gave way to field crops and open rangeland. 

One of the things I’ve always found wonderful about the west is that the sky is so big.  In Florida there was scrub and humidity, in Connecticut rolling tree-covered hills and haze, and I always felt a bit claustrophobic.  But out here in the shortgrass prairie (and deserts) of the west, it feels like you can see forever.  As I cruised westward along the two-lane highway, I watched a pair of isolated thunderstorms to the south build, cap, and downburst; they were easily 50 miles away.  

I turned north at Fort Sumner and began my climb towards the foothills of the southern Rockies.  Here a surveyor’s theodolite had mapped a long, straight path across the dry plateau, with an occasional canyon (that fed the Pecos River during monsoon season) to interrupt miles of dried scrub and grass.  Fortunately there were storms to the north and west to entertain me as I continued my journey.  One to the northwest was particularly formidable: miles of towering cumulonimbus clouds anchored to the earth with a thick shaft of rain.  As the pavement eased to a northwesterly route, I got a better view.

But wait, what was this?  

The storm began to fill my windscreen, and soon it was upon me.  My truck was slapped with rain and wind, with the occasional flash of lightning to make things interesting.  As visibility dropped I slowed, 50 mph, 40 mph, 30mph (trying to keep two to five seconds of visibility), with flashers on to warn my fellow travelers.  As I approached Santa Rosa, I met up with a fellow voyager, an 18-wheeler slightly more cautious than I.  I tucked in his slipstream, and we inchwormed our way north.  Ten minutes turned to fifteen, fifteen turned to twenty.  At twenty-eight minutes we turned onto the Interstate, and the storm seemed to intensify.

The lightning became more frequent; the thunder was so loud I jumped in my seat.  Water came off my big-rig friend in sheets and pooled on the cement highway.  At this point, too timid to stop for gas or pull over to the side of the road on my own, I continued on, occasionally taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself.  As we slowly made our way up the slope to the west of town, I began to wonder whether the storm would ever end.  Then suddenly, about eight miles west of town, sun and clear-ish skies.  

I pulled over at the next exit, and took refuge at a lonely petrol station packed with other vehicles.  I was number twenty or so in queue, so I rolled down the windows and took in the damp, sage-scented desert air.  My arms ached from gripping the wheel, and I slowly realized my headache had returned.  Albuquerque was still 160 miles ahead.

* Every AFB has a front gate (very fancy) and at least one back gate (less so).

It took me a few minutes to recover from my camera fail.  

As I cycled through the stages of grief for my broken device, I did what we all do: turned it on and off hoping it would self-correct (denial), I cursed my fumbling hands (anger), fiddled with the knobs and scrolled through the menu looking for a command that might help (bargaining), all to no avail.  Finally, resigned to its demise (and a little miffed I wouldn’t be able to get snaps), I headed out to explore the air park.  

Past the chow hall I went, and the fire department, and ‘round the north side of the roundabout and the US and Texas flags that proudly flew at its center.  I passed the Class Six (Air Force version of a package store) and the Burger King, and took note of them as possible dinner locations on the return leg.  It felt nice to move my body, to put one foot in front of the other after the long sits in my car.  

Over the years I have found an hour before sunset to be a good time for a walk; the shadows are longer, haze filters the setting sun, there is usually a breeze, and the people you encounter are generally more relaxed.  (In this case I had also wanted to get photos of the aircraft.)  As I walked I realized I had miscalculated; twenty minutes out and the air felt hotter than when I had left.  But there they were, towering above me, the first aircraft in the display. 

They were fast jets, the F-100, F-104 (made famous in that last scene in the Right Stuff where Chuck Yeager chased that demon in the sky), the F105, and the F-4 (with enough thrust even bricks can fly), which I remembered fondly from my early days at Nellis.  I was naughty and left the path to explore each jet and its placard which included not only type descriptors but details of the tail number’s actual missions).  It reminded me of the thrill I felt when I was first learning to fly, the possibilities and excitement available in the big blue sky.

Next was a cluster of Korean era warbirds (F84, F86, and others).  A little farther on, after a pair of trainers (T-37 and T-38), I came upon a cluster of early Cold War workhorses.  I marveled at the playfulness of their names (Voodoo, Tweety, Skytrain, Thunderstreak) and their personal histories (the lone C-47 had over 100 flights as part of the Berlin Airlift).  As I read each placard I was struck by their development histories: each had a specific mission and with it a rapid development and deployment cycle, sometimes as little as eighteen months from idea to flight.  Each of these aircraft were built for a specific purpose, built by men and women with a mission, so different than the drawn-out, design-by-committee multi-mission ‘platforms’ we see today. 

But what was this?  I was suddenly lightheaded, and a flush of weakness passed through me.  I’d let myself become so engrossed in the planes that I had missed that even with the low sun, the air was scorching.  Less than a mile in, I was too hot and too tired.  As much as I wanted to continue, after a quick pass around a group of light transports (including samples of the C121, C123 and Caribou, the same types my first flight instructor had shuttled around Cambodia and Laos the year I was born) I turned back.  

My progress slowed considerably.  I adopted a zigzag path, lingering in the shade of trees and aircraft to catch my breath and regain my balance before scurrying to my next refuge.  I briefly considered waving down a passing car and asking for a ride (a relatively safe choice on a military base), but decided to press on as long as I could on my own.  And, as the sun dipped below the horizon, I reached the last of the displays, and shortly thereafter, the Class Six.  I stumbled in and reveled in the air conditioned space.  After one tall ice tea from the fountain, and then another, I felt composed enough to continue.

By the time I made it back to my room I was lightheaded and a little bit pukey.  After a long shower and some ibuprofen I curled up in bed, hoping a good night’s sleep would clear my head for the next day’s drive.  

When I think of Texas, I always imagine wide open prairies and oilfields.  I do this even after time spent along the beaches and bayous of Texas’ Gulf Coast and the dry mountains between Alpine and Marfa.  So the Piney Woods of northeast Texas, a forest filled with loblolly pine, hickory, and oak, always comes as a surprise.  This was the landscape that met me as I drove west along I-20.  

The morning began with a quick hop over the Red River.  I had crossed it earlier in the trip, during an interval of horrible flooding and now, like then, the industrial structures of Shreveport disappointingly blocked my view of the water.  As I continued on, the buildings thinned and the highway became bordered with trees and open fields.  I tend to be a bit of a cynic about this, having seen many places where a thin strip of trees are used to block traffic noise in otherwise developed areas, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover during my first petrol stop (at a ‘travel station’ about a mile off-highway) that the forest continued for miles in every direction. 

Today was another abbreviated driving day, just over 400 miles to an Air Force Base just outside Abilene.  But as I drove (and despite my beloved 80-mph Texas speed limit), the miles seemed to drag on forever, and fatigued me in a way they had not on previous legs. By lunchtime (a Cracker Barrel along the south Dallas ring road), my leg ached, my arm ached, my butt ached, and I was spent.  I checked my flight plan; I was barely halfway to Dyess.  I continued on.

July was bright through my car’s windows.  As mile after mile passed, my eyes began to sting with fatigue from the sun and dry air.  By now the forest had given way to (familiar and expected) prairie, and the sameness of the miles added a touch of sleepiness.  I stopped at rest areas to stretch my legs, and added an extra fuel stop for some caffeine and distraction.  Relief washed over me as I reached the outskirts of Abilene.  I clumsily navigated my way off the highway, through town towards Dyess AFB and finally, with a quick flash of my ID*, I was in.  It was mid-afternoon, and once settled in my room (thankfully on the shaded north side of the building) I took some Advil, chugged some water, and lay down for some quiet time, hoping the combination would soothe my aching eyes and noggin.

During the drive from the front gate to the lodging office, I had noticed a series of static aircraft displays along the main road.  My curiosity had been sparked during my explorations at the Barksdale Air Museum that morning, I chose this for the route for my evening constitutional.  As the sun drew low, I headed out, hoping to snap some photos to add to my collection.  A quick search of my room indicated I had left my camera in my car, so I made a quick stop to add it to my bag.  

Then… I don’t know how it happened… as I lifted my camera from its designated cupholder it slipped from my hand and, after a quick bounce off the running board, hit the concrete pavement with a thwack! and skidded under my truck.

Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease I whispered silently to myself as I knelt down and fished under the still-warm drivetrain for my camera. 

I pushed the ON-OFF and held my breath. I heard the usual whirring, then more whirring, then even more whirring, then three short beeps.  Two words flashed on the display.  NoNoNoNoNo.

LENS FAIL. 

*As a ‘surviving family member’, I still have base access.